


"But Never Far From Folly"

by farad



Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-25
Updated: 2017-08-25
Packaged: 2018-12-19 20:52:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11906004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/farad/pseuds/farad
Summary: For the prompt "any and/or any; Escorts AU; one of their favorite clients just wanted to be treated as a normal human being once in a while."  This is my own interpretation of the Escorts Universe.Special thanks to the awesome Jojo for reading and making suggestions. All mistakes my very own.





	"But Never Far From Folly"

**Author's Note:**

  * For [boogieshoes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/boogieshoes/gifts).



 

“ _A virtuous, ordinary life, striving for wisdom but never far from folly, is achievement enough.”_

 

\- Alain de Botton

 

 

 

JD – 7:00-8:30 am.

 

 

 

Eric bolted straight up as the loud klaxon went off beside his head. He had been so deeply asleep that the dream he had been having held on like a Los Angeles starlet wanting a part in one of his company’s commercials. The blaring, rhythmic sound took a part in the dream, as if his office had suddenly been hit by a massive malware attack and all of the systems were crashing.

 

 

 

His heart was beating so fast that he could hear it – as if it were actually the klaxon.

 

 

 

But as he came out of the fog of sleep, he realized that it was the alarm on his phone. It wasn’t possible that it was already 6:30 – 6:30 didn’t come this early in the morning.

 

 

 

He looked at his phone, though, and it read exactly that: 6:30 am. It gave him great satisfaction to turn off the damned alarm.

 

 

 

The escort was due here in half an hour, and he had promised to be ready.

 

 

 

He closed his eyes, wondering what had possessed him to do this. He thought very deeply about picking up the phone and calling the agency and canceling; he could tell them he had been out of his mind, and he suspected they would agree. What idiot spent tens of thousands of dollars asking to have a ‘normal American day’?

 

 

 

What the hell kind of idiot was he?

 

 

 

He flopped back into his plush pillows, reminded of how perfectly they adapted to the shape of his head, the bend in his neck – the tension in his shoulders that left him stooped after a long day at his computer.

 

 

 

He had taken the day off – several days, actually, though he knew himself well enough to know that he would be working a lot from home. He had one of the most successful businesses in the world – he had to do work, to stay on top of it.

 

 

 

Why had he even considered this insane idea?

 

 

 

Because Dani’s last words still haunted him. Even now, they echoed through his mind, part of the dream that he had been having: ‘No one can have a relationship with you, Eric; you’re so connected to that damned computer that you don’t know what a normal life is like.’

 

 

 

‘A normal life.’

 

 

 

The memory of Dani still made him ache. All that laughter. All that love. But he had pushed it too far, and despite all the things he wanted to point to, he knew that Dani had been right: he didn’t know how to live a normal life. Since the age of 16, he’d lost himself in the tech, in the design and building, and then the competition to stay on top, to find a way to add the newest, latest app or program or gadget.

 

 

 

The thing that had finally done it for Dani had been so simple, really, so damned stupid: a damned can opener. Eric hadn’t known how to open a can of soup without a pull tab.

 

 

 

It had been six month since Dani had packed up and left. And no matter how busy Eric was, how much he concentrated on anything else, he found Dani’s words coming to mind at the oddest moments.

 

 

 

It was those words that now pushed him back up, out of the bed. He glanced at his phone as he did so: 6:43. He had 17 minutes before the first one arrived. “Roby,” he called into the darkened room. The sound of his voice, though, initiated the lights, which activated but at a very low level. Over the next two minutes, they gradually brightened, allowing his eyes to adjust from darkness to a soft brightness that was not unlike experiencing dawn.

 

 

 

“Sir,” the low, warm computer voice said. “Shall I start the coffee pot?”

 

 

 

The program – the ‘smart house’ - was his own design, and to his own specifications. “Please,” he answered, “and what it is the first thing on the schedule for today?”

 

 

 

“Exercise,” Roby answered easily. “The instructions are to dress comfortably for exercise, with shoes that are appropriate. Your trainer will arrive promptly at 7.”

 

 

 

He had time to wash his face, brush his teeth, and get into the Nike sweats and shoes he had bought – at the suggestion of Lila, his assistant. ‘Not too cheap, not to expensive, and really good for exercise while you’re going to do it,’ she had said with a grin.

 

 

 

The door chimed as he was tying his shoes, so he called, “Roby? Who is it?”

 

 

 

At which point it occurred to him that he wasn’t sure which of the escorts he would see. Larabee had been intentionally – and irritatingly – secretive on that point. He suspected it would be Nathan – the man did like to talk about health and taking care of the body. Or maybe Vin, who had a great body and always seemed to be willing to try anything. And able to do just about everything.

 

 

 

Thinking of that got his blood going.

 

 

 

It was a little of a surprise when Roby announced, “JD is here,” and the door swung open to show him leaning against the doorframe, one leg bent at the knee and JD pulling on that ankle, stretching his thigh. “Ready?” the young man said. “Perfect morning for a good run.”

 

 

 

Run. The very word made him hurt.

 

 

 

As if sensing that, JD grinned and said, “But not too fast. And no hills. There are some really beautiful trails close to here – Vin and I ran them last week. Come on.”

 

 

 

He was so distracted by the mental image of Vin and JD running together that they were out of his building and on the sidewalk, walking briskly toward the nearby public park area before he realized he’d never had a chance to have coffee.

 

 

 

They moved slowly from the brisk walk to a slow jog then a steady trot. JD ran easily, of course, and Eric thought about all the energy he had seen in the young man. JD always seemed to be at a constant level of controlled chaos – Eric had named a game module after JD, at least during the building phase; the speed and randomness with which he wanted the module to affect the game itself was a lot like the way JD was in bed – and before and after. Curious, constantly in motion from on thing to another – but not so random that it couldn’t make sense. JD was that way. After being with him for a short time, Eric could predict with some degree of certainty what his next interest would be.

 

 

 

He tested himself now, and was pleased to see that he could follow the flow of JD’s observations. It helped that JD had been right: it was beautiful this time of day, cool and crisp, the scenery – well, it was lovely. So much color. Fall, it was – Fall. It had been years since Eric had considered the way that the seasons moved. The subtle transition from one to the other.

 

 

 

The way that nature still went on without electricity or batteries or a program to tell it what to do.

 

 

 

Well, not a man-made program, anyway.

 

 

 

They stopped at one point so that JD could point out a particular type of tree – some sort of Asian tree that was a deep red, almost unnaturally so, Eric thought. But it felt like a real plant and Eric wondered if he could recreate that color in a digital setting.

 

 

 

Then they were moving again, a slow trot, and JD was talking about different kinds of leaves of the plants, and Eric noticed that he was right – the leaves were different shapes and sizes, some paper thin, other robust. In the back of his mind, he recalled a biology class – or may be it was environmental science? - that he had taken in high school. Some of this was familiar to him, but he couldn’t recall actually going outside and seeing things.

 

 

 

They stopped at a pond, which seemed at first to be empty, but then he saw movement – dark, mysterious movement.

 

 

 

“Koi,” JD said, bending at the waist to look at them. “Not good to eat, but really pretty to watch. Josiah says he could spend all day watching koi and meditating. I can’t get into the meditating stuff, but I do agree – I could watch them swim around for hours.”

 

 

 

“They look . . . mysterious,” Eric said. “Dangerous.”

 

 

 

JD grinned. “Mostly, they’re overgrown goldfish, or that’s what Josiah says. But yeah, there’s something about them that’s both fascinating and kinda scary. I think that’s why I like watching them.”

 

 

 

They stood for a time, doing just that. Watching.

 

 

 

When the run continued, Eric considered getting a fish tank. He’d thought about it before, but now . . .

 

 

 

They rounded a curve in the trail and JD slowed to an easy jog. “This is a perfect place to see the park,” he said, and Eric looked up to a broad view of the open grassy fields, tall trees spreading their wide branches above, colorful flowers and plants arranged in such a way as to seem random, though they weren’t. The landscaping was as intricate as a puzzle, each plant and color coordinated with the others around it. Eric knew, rationally, that the park wasn’t as big as it appeared here. And more, that the weren’t actually in a large wilderness; they were in the middle of a very large city.

 

 

 

Bur from this vantage, at this point, they seemed to be in a perfect natural setting. He couldn’t even hear the vehicles on the freeway nearby.

 

 

 

“Chris says he likes to come here and walk, just to get away, to escape. He says it’s like going back in time.” JD’s voice was low and soft, so soft that it didn’t interfere with the view.

 

 

 

Eric thought on that for a while, watching the way the shadows moved as the sun slowly rose a little higher in the sky.

 

 

 

When they finally made their way back to the sidewalk, slowing from a steady jog to a slower walk, Eric realized that while he felt sweaty and his leg muscles hurt, he had not become so winded he couldn’t breathe. It occurred to him that many of JD’s stops had been intentional – to keep him from feeling like he was really exercising.

 

 

 

“Ezra likes to run in the park, too,” JD said, stretching his arms above his head. “He says that it’s not really like exercising, not if you take the time to look at it. I think he’s right. I also think that’s why so many people like to walk through it – or run through it. It’s restful – even though it’s not.”

 

 

 

Eric turned his head to look at the young man. “Do you run there often?” he asked, skeptical suddenly of all the wise things these men had to say.

 

 

 

JD shrugged. “Often as I can. I hate to work out, but I do like to come here. It’s almost like it’s – well, like it’s not real work. It’s never the same. There’s always something different to see.”

 

 

 

As they reached Eric’s building, JD slowed, and Eric slowed with him. “Coffee?” he asked. “I’ll make a fresh pot. Or Roby will.”

 

 

 

JD smiled. “Thanks, but that’s our hour and a half. I’ve got to get back. You need to shower and grab something to eat – your next appointment is at 9:30.”

 

 

 

Without thinking, Eric pulled his phone from the pocket of his sweats – and he realized as he did it that it as the first time since they had left the building that he had gone for it. The time read 9:00 – they had been out ‘exercising’ for an hour and a half. And he had barely noticed it. Though he had noticed a lot of other things.

 

 

 

Was this the way ‘normal people’ lived?

 

 

 

He looked up, a list of questions on his mind to ask, but he found himself standing alone. He looked to his left and saw that JD was jogging away, the hood on his sweatshirt bouncing as he moved. Eric noticed that there was a line of sweat down the back of the grey shirt and it surprised him. It didn’t seem like they had done that much work.

 

 

 

When he got upstairs, though, he found that his own clothes were drenched in sweat and that after he stopped, there was an ache in his leg muscles.

 

 

 

But not a hard ache. A pleasant one that made him think that there as some thing to this idea of exercising in the morning. In the outdoors.

 

 

 

Vin – 9–10:30 am

 

 

 

“Vin,” Roby reported as the door bell chimed. Eric had showered, dressed casually – jeans, a vintage Rocky Horror Picture Show t-shirt under a flannel shirt, and, feeling pretty good about himself, the Nike shoes he had worn earlier -though with clean socks. He was drinking coffee – but still only his first cup – as the door opened and Vin came in. He was dressed much like Eric himself, though his jeans were pretty well worn and his T-shirt was so old that Eric couldn’t determine what it said.

 

 

 

“Mornin’!” Vin said, smiling widely. He had a large bucket with him, full of bottles and things with handles that Eric couldn’t identify. “We ain’t got a lot of time for this, so we’re going to hit the basics – bathroom, kitchen, laundry.”

 

 

 

Eric blinked, not sure what he was hearing. He took another sip of coffee, stalling, and as he did, Vin brushed past him and turned into the apartment’s big kitchen, where he set the bucket on the counter and started pulling out bottles of – cleaning supplies?

 

 

 

“What are those for?” Eric asked, both horrified and perversely curious. “I have a maid – a whole staff, actually, when I need them.”

 

 

 

Vin glanced over his shoulder. “Reckon you do,” he said, “but you said you wanted a ‘normal day’ and for most people, there’s some point in the day when things get cleaned. So we’re gonna do what ‘normal people’ do. Even people with 8-hour jobs have dishes and clothes to wash, bathrooms and kitchens to clean.”

 

 

 

And that was what they did.

 

 

 

Eric had to admit, it was – interesting. He’d been exposed to the idea of cleaning, of course. His mother had tried for over a decade to get him to make up his bed, put up his clothes, do the general things that kept a kid’s room tidy enough to find stuff. And he’d pretty much complied, mostly because it _was_ easier to find his stuff when he needed it.

 

 

 

In his own place, though, he was who he was. His clothes were – well, where ever they were, something he hadn’t really thought about until Dani had tripped over a pile of dirty clothes one night when he’d gotten up to go to the bathroom. The resulting fall had resulted in a sprained ankle, and bump on the head, and two months of having to sleep at Dani’s place – and sharing a bed with both Dani and his damned cat. In the wake of that, he’d tried to be more tidy – which really meant keeping the pile of dirty clothes in the corner or on a chair, not in the middle of the floor.

 

 

 

Since Dani left, though, things had returned to their usual entropy and he was actually embarrassed to be collecting his dirty clothes from various places in the bedroom with Vin looking on.

 

 

 

Though it did make him wonder . . . “What do you do with your dirty clothes?”

 

 

 

Vin was leaning against one side of the doorframe, his arms crossed over his chest. He had good arms, strong, but not muscle bound. Defined, as Dani would have said. His neck was too, and Eric watched as Vin turned his head, the tendons in his long throat bending and twisting. “Keep a hamper in the closet,” he said. “Keeps ‘em out of sight, out of the flow of traffic and the like. Also cuts down on the smell.”

 

 

 

Eric straightened as he dropped the last set of clothes into the clothes basket (which they had found, thankfully, in the laundry room). He took a tentative sniff, and realized that there was a sort of smell in the room.

 

 

 

Not as bad as locker room but sort of like . . . dirty laundry.

 

 

 

He’d have to get on to Elena, the woman who did his cleaning and washing. He paid too much for his personal quarters to smell this way.

 

 

 

“We don’t let the housekeepers into our private spaces,” Vin said. “So we pretty much do our own laundry and room cleaning. I don’t like others in my stuff.”

 

 

 

“Yeah, me either,” Eric agreed – and with it, he realized that Elena didn’t come in here, except once a month, to change the sheets and vacuum. His rule.

 

 

 

“Pretty good load there,” Vin said when Eric had gathered all the dirty clothes he could find. “Probably more than one. Need to separate the colors from the whites.”

 

 

 

With that confusing phrase, Vin turned and headed back down the hall, letting Eric carry the heavy basket. His annoyance was curbed, though, by watching Vin’s very attractive ass in those very form-fitting and well-worn jeans.

 

 

 

“You dress like that when you’re cleaning?” he asked.

 

 

 

Vin turned to go into the laundry room but glanced back to Eric. “This is what I normally wear, so yeah. We wear what we want on our own time.”

 

 

 

Eric frowned, not sure what that meant. But before he could ask, he turned to follow into the laundry room, to find Vin looking at the machines in it.

 

 

 

“This is some high- class equipment,” Vin said, frowning. “You got an instruction manual?”

 

 

 

Eric laughed, setting the basket on the ground. “Instruction manual,” he repeated, laughing harder. “This is a smart house, my friend. Roby,” he called out, and instantly, his house answered.

 

 

 

“What can I do for you?” the house answered.

 

 

 

“Roby, please answer Vin’s questions about the washing machine.” He looked at Vin, pleased to see those lovely eyebrows arched high into Vin’s forehead. He waved a hand, encouraging Vin to actually voice a question.

 

 

 

Which Vin eventually did. “How does it work?” he asked.

 

 

 

Roby was clear and concise, and Vin, who was very smart, caught on in no time at all.

 

 

 

Though he was having a little trouble with the idea of Roby. “He ain’t real,” he said, frowning at Eric as they stood watching the water level rise in the glass door of the washer.

 

 

 

“He’s real,” Eric said. “He’s just – non corporeal.”

 

 

 

Vin tilted his head, but before Eric had to explain, he said, “How can he be real if he ain’t got a body?”

 

 

 

Eric drew a breath, thinking it through. “In a way, he does have a body – it’s the whole place, the whole house. He’s the voice-activated control to my computer – and all my appliances and many other things are connected to that computer. So I can make them all work by telling Roby what I want them to do.”

 

 

 

Vin drew in a deep breath and looked up to the ceiling. “Saw a movie once like that. Computer that ran a space station.”

 

 

 

“Yeah yeah,” Eric waved a hand. “That’s science fiction. This is real.”

 

 

 

Vin shrugged. “Still didn’t end well.”

 

 

 

Eric really hated the science fiction movies that made AI look bad. Even Tony Stark’s AI had gone to the bad, creating Ultron. He opened his mouth to argue, but Vin interrupted with another question. “Does it wipe your butt for you?”

 

 

 

The question was out of left field and Eric blinked. “What?” he asked, wondering if he had misunderstood.

 

 

 

Vin grinned. “Well, while the laundry’s washing, we got other things to do. I like to start with the bathroom, go ahead and get it out of the way.”

 

 

 

“The bathroom?” Eric asked, completely confused.

 

 

 

Vin reached to the bottles and tools he had brought, selecting three spray bottles, a brush with a long handle and a couple of rags. “Room that needs cleaning more than any other.”

 

 

 

Eric stared. “You’re not seriously going to clean my bathroom,” he said, hurrying to catch up as Vin walked out of the laundry room and back down the hall to the master bedroom.

 

 

 

“Nope,” he answered. “You are.”

 

 

 

They had had sex. Often, actually, as Vin was one of Eric’s favorites these past six months. But there was something far more intimate in what happened next. Eric wasn’t fastidious about much – as his bedroom attested. But his bathroom was something else. It was his most private space. It had taken him almost a year to share it with Dani – even when Dani was staying over almost every night.

 

 

 

Vin was practical though, and that made it much easier. He explained the basics, which weren’t rocket science, and he went so far as to pick up the brush and start the scrubbing process. But Eric reached out and took the brush away, shooing Vin out of the room.

 

 

 

He did know how to clean a bathroom, and he did not want to watch someone else do it. It occurred to him then that on the days when the cleaning service came in, he made sure he was at the office.

 

 

 

Because he didn’t want to see.

 

 

 

He wiped down the shower and the sink, cleaned the mirrors and the fixtures, then they did the same in the two other bathrooms – which didn’t take long and wasn’t nearly as bad they were rarely used these days. Cleaning the bath in the guest room did make Eric a little sad; he knew it hadn’t been used since Dani had left.

 

 

 

The clothes in the washer were ready to go into the dryer – only Vin sent Eric back to the bedroom to get clothes hangers, which Vin used to hang Eric’s nicer shirts and non-denim pants. He then suspended them around the laundry room, explaining that the cloth would last longer if it didn’t get run through the dryer so often.

 

 

 

And that hanging them the right way kept them from having to be ironed.

 

 

 

Eric thought about that. It hadn’t occurred to him that among the duties of his staff was having to iron his clothes. It was another chore he had resented as a youth.

 

 

 

While the rest of the clothes from the first load dried, they started the second load to wash, then headed for the kitchen. Cleaning it up didn’t take long either, though Eric was surprised by the number of dishes scattered about to wash. Elena came in every day but Sunday, and he had given her today off because of this ‘project’. It was Monday.

 

 

 

How had he accrued so many dishes in two days – without eating an actual meal here?

 

 

 

“Well,” Vin said as he pulled open the dishwasher, “you don’t have to use a clean glass every time you get a drink of water. Can reuse a glass.” He pointed to five glasses, all of which looked as if they had not been used, though they had been in the sink.

 

 

 

Eric knew he had, from habit, picked up a clean glass each time he had come in to get water.

 

 

 

And he also knew that if he walked through the place, back to his studio, he would find at least five more.

 

 

 

That was confirmed a short time later, when Vin said they should do exactly that. “At least you got a dishwasher,” Vin said as they carried more things back to the kitchen. “What if you had to wash all of these by hand?”

 

 

 

Eric had no idea what he meant, but decided the question was rhetorical.

 

 

 

Vacuuming was as exciting as it had always been – though there was a thrill in watching Vin bend over to move furniture out of the way that did make it a lot more fun than he remembered it ever being before.

 

 

 

Watching Vin fold his underwear was another thrill, though it was also a little uncomfortable. He put his clothes up himself, and when he returned, he found Vin standing at the door with his bucket of cleaning supplies, talking to Nathan.

 

 

 

“Sorry,” Vin said, looking from Nathan to Eric. “I took too long – it’s been two hours. Nathan’s turn now, so I’m gonna leave you in his hands.”

 

 

 

Eric looked around the place, oddly satisfied with himself and his home. “Thanks,” he said, meaning it. He reached out a hand, touching Vin on the shoulder. “I appreciate it.”

 

 

 

Vin smiled, a soft expression that made him seem older than he was. “Glad to help,” he said with a nod. “Talk to you.”

 

 

 

Then he slipped out the door, leaving Eric standing with Nathan.

 

 

 

Nathan – 11 am–12:30 pm

 

 

 

Nathan smiled at him. “Ready?”

 

 

 

Eric smiled back without thought – Nathan had one of the most beautiful smiles he had ever seen, made all the more perfect by the sincerity behind it. Eric had doubted for a long time, unable to believe that anyone could be as sincere and attractive. Then he had eventually come to realize that that sincerity was what made Nathan attractive.

 

 

 

Served him well in bed too, where Nathan was honest about what he liked and wanted – and what he would do. He wasn’t as willing to experiment as Vin and Buck, but what he did do, he did well and with finesse.

 

 

 

Out of bed, the sincerity was coupled with a blunt honesty that was often – well, painful, and not in the same way that Josiah was. Nathan did not sugarcoat anything, and at times, he was almost rude. Though it was always with reason: because taking care of people was what he truly believed in, and sometimes, that required making them confront harsh things.

 

 

 

Usually about themselves.

 

 

 

“Sure,” Eric answered, then he caught himself. “Where?”

 

 

 

Nathan chuckled, shaking his head. “Chris did say he was planning to make this challenging for you. So you and me, we’re doing a nice, normal trip to the grocery store.”

 

 

 

Eric frowned. “Grocery store? Why?”

 

 

 

Nathan tilted his head, and the light from the recessed bulbs in the ceiling caught in his deep brown irises, making them look gold. “Because normal people have to cook their own meals. We can’t all have a service deliver our food – or a cook do the cooking for us.”

 

 

 

Eric shook his head, but mostly to drive away the memory of the can opener fiasco. “But that’s what restaurants are for,” he said, moving to the cabinet where the glasses were. “As back-up.”

 

 

 

Nathan reached out with one index finger, gently poking at Eric’s belly. “No, my man,” he said. “Restaurants are special events – or they are for most people. Having someone else cook – and choosing food that is special – is a reward, not the standard. The standard for most people is to cook for themselves. That way, they have some control over their health.”

 

 

 

Eric drew in a breath, ready to argue.

 

 

 

Nathan was faster. “I’m not talking about culinary school,” he said. “But basics – quick weeknight meals that don’t always involve a microwave. Easy, healthy things you can eat that will fill you up but don’t take a lot of time. And that are good for you. So you don’t end up looking like most of the computer geeks at 40.”

 

 

 

Eric was 37. And, as Nathan had just pointed out, he had a belly – not a bad one; certainly not as bad as the guys he had been gaming with 15 years ago, many of whom still lived on Cheetos, Dr. Pepper, and take-out food.

 

 

 

When he’d thought about it – which was not something he did a lot – Eric had assumed that the reason he wasn’t big enough to need two seats on a plane was because he was gay, and there was a certain need to attract other men, who could often be pretty damned picky about appearance.

 

 

 

But he also knew that he was getting to that age where his metabolism was going to slow down, and when it did, well, the paunch he had now was only going to spread.

 

 

 

Grocery shopping. He did shop for food – well, for things in the grocery store. He had coffee after all – depended on it, and only the good stuff! That came from several different online retailers, as did his wine, and his champagne, his whiskey, sometimes his beer -

 

 

 

“Food,” Nathan said, his voice sharp enough to bring Eric back to the present. “Real food. You’ll be amazed by what you can do if you have just a few basic staples in the house. And better, what you will want to do. I promise you, my friend, there is nothing as wonderful as making a dish yourself, to your own tastes – and having other people like it. Come on, now.”

 

 

 

Eric hesitated still, but the scent of cleaner tickled his nose and reminded him of how good it felt to accomplish something.

 

 

 

And he had asked for this. “Let me get my stuff,” he said, heading into this office to grab his phone off its charger and his wallet and keys. He noticed that there were messages on his screen and he held it up, starting read them, then Nathan called, “You do like kale, don’t you?”

 

 

 

Eric bolted toward the kitchen.

 

 

 

Eric expected them to drive, but Nathan laughed. “There’s a perfectly good local market in the next block. Just as soon spend money with small business, when possible.”

 

 

 

“So – walking?” Eric said, though he knew the answer already.

 

 

 

Nathan didn’t bother to answer, merely setting off at a brisk pace. Like Vin, he was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, though his clothes were less worn, the t-shirt’s writing clear: ‘Run for those who can’t: Children’s Hospital Marathon, Half Marathon, and 5-K’. The back was a list of vendors who had donated to the event and Eric recognized some of them, the bigger ones.

 

 

 

“Beautiful day,” Nathan said, looking around as they walked. “Love to be out when it’s like this.”

 

 

 

Eric looked around. The sun was warm but not too warm, pretty white clouds drifting across the sky – a continuation of the fine weather they’d had in the park. There were people on the sidewalk, but it wasn’t so crowded that they had to fight for space. Traffic was steady but not crazy. There was music playing somewhere in the distance, a light, jazzy piece that was easy on the ears.

 

 

 

The grocery was not what he had expected. It was in the middle of the next block, the bottom floor of a mixed-use building, with the upper three floors appearing to be apartments and offices. Outside the front doors and along the front of the building were wheeled carts full of different produce – fruits, greens, vegetables – not a lot of varieties, but the fresh produce looked very good.

 

 

 

Or Eric thought it did. “Get me a basket, please,” Nathan said, picking up several bunches of greens and looking at them closely.

 

 

 

When Eric returned with a wire basket, he found Nathan holding two bunches of greens and a couple of long green things that Eric couldn’t identify.

 

 

 

“Do you eat cucumbers?” Nathan asked.

 

 

 

“Sure,” Eric said, though he didn’t see any slices of cucumbers anywhere. Then Nathan put the things in his hands into the basket and looked around.

 

 

 

“Fresh is always better,” he said, “and I always keep basic salad parts around. I’ve got you kale and romaine there – if you’re not used to kale, you use it a little at time. You can also add it to cans of soup or stews, to give them more depth and to make them better for you.” He walked to a nearby bin and picked up a couple of potatoes. “These last for a long time if you treat ‘em right – and one of the quickest and easiest meals is a baked potato with beans.” He dropped two potatoes into the basket as he was talking.

 

 

 

Despite himself, Eric found that he enjoyed the shopping with Nathan. Not so much the details about food, though they were interesting; better, though, were the man’s off the cuff comments about his co-workers and housemates:

 

 

 

In the produce section: “Onions are wonderful things, but it’s often best to cook them or put them in something you’re cooking. Raw onions add a lot of flavor, but they can also be too strong on the system; Buck can eat a whole one raw – and loves to try, especially with Mexican food – but then he can’t understand why he has heartburn. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve had to tell him . . .”

 

 

 

In the canned goods: “We keep cans of soup – the healthy ones, with the lower sodium – in the cabinets at all times. Good for quick meals, but also for illnesses and hangovers, which are pretty constant around the house. Keep vegetable beef on hand for Josiah and Chris, chicken and dumplings for JD, and tomato basil for Ezra. If it’s my turn to shop, I always get the Progressos or the Annie’s – those are my favorites.”

 

 

 

Eric noticed that most of the tops had pull tabs, but some didn’t. He’d have to learn to use the can opener. Again.

 

 

 

“Always get tuna in water – not nearly as bad for you as the ones in oil. Unless, like Vin, you add too much mayonnaise. I can’t get him to use lemon on it.”

 

 

 

In the breakfast foods: “You are not going to get those, not on my watch.” He took the Fruit Loops out of Eric’s hands and put them back on the shelf so quickly that Eric wasn’t sure he’d ever held them. “That is nothing but pure sugar – why do you think JD is always so full of energy? He eats those like candy – and the thing is, candy would probably be better for him. Here,” he handed Eric a box of something called Kashi. “Much better for you – more fiber, more grains, nuts, berries – and very little extra sugar.”

 

 

 

In the pasta aisle: “Never go wrong having a good pasta noodle on hand – you can do anything with those, salads, pasta casseroles, even breakfast bakes. Chris makes a mean egg pie – we can’t call it quiche, he gets riled at that – using spaghetti noodles as the base instead of a pie crust.”

 

 

 

In the frozen section: “A salad and a Lean Cuisine is an easy, pretty healthy lunch or dinner. But that’s what they are – lunch or dinner. Not a middle of the night snack, and certainly not two or more. Especially the pizza ones. Vin and Josiah can put away four of those things at a sitting – and still complain about them not tasting like ‘real pizza’.”

 

 

 

“Yes, those are cooked hamburgers, and you microwave them, but no – put that back! They are not good for you. Use this instead – it’s black bean, and it’s good, I promise. It doesn’t pretend to be a meat, but it’s got a really good flavor. I can even get Chris and Vin to eat them from time to time.”

 

 

 

“We are not going down that aisle – you can do that on your own time. Ice cream is not something you should keep on hand – believe me, it’s life expectancy in our house is about 1 night per gallon. And that’s only if you can hide it from Josiah and Buck. If they see it come into the house, it’s gone before dinner. The whole damned gallon. And they wonder why they can’t lose weight . . . “

 

 

 

In the dairy: “2% mozzarella is just as good as the full-fat one. That’s true of cheddar, too. I take those into the house all the time and not even Chris and Ezra have commented on them. Though Ezra still prefers Brie and Camembert, the soft gooey things.”

 

 

 

In the end, they had two baskets full of things, and Eric had made a note to come back for the Fruit Loops, ice cream, and potato chips that he wanted. It was good to know that this market was here, actually.

 

 

 

And he noticed, as they were leaving, that it was open until midnight.

 

 

 

Nathan talked about health and weight, and Eric found himself actually paying attention.

 

 

 

“Ain’t none of us getting any younger,” Nathan said as they waited for the light to change at the intersection. “And we can’t do what we’re doing now forever. Josiah only works part-time now – it’s more a hobby for him than anything. We all have investments – Chris is really good about that – but we all want to live as long as we can to enjoy them. And eventually, we all want to settle down, too, I think. So taking care of ourselves is pretty important. JD’s still young enough to think he’s gonna live forever, but he’s also coming around, I think. If I can keep him off those damned Fruit Loops.”

 

 

 

When they got back to the house, Nathan put the bags he was carrying on the counter then settled onto one of the tall stools under the counter on the island. “You know where to put everything?”

 

 

 

Eric looked around his kitchen. The fridge he knew well. And he knew where the chips and cookies lived in the pantry.

 

 

 

But . . .

 

 

 

Nathan grinned. “Good time to figure it out, huh.”

 

 

 

And it, too, was kind of fun, like discovering a whole new world in his own house. Not only did he explore the things that Elena kept stocked in his own pantry and fridge, but he also explored the pots and pans, with Nathan explaining some of the basics. He wasn’t totally ignorant; Dani had loved to cook and they often talked while he did.

 

 

 

He and Nathan talked now, while he opened a can of lentil soup – he could work the can opener! – and set it to heat on the stove. Nathan talked him through washing a leaf of the kale and tearing it apart, and then suggested adding a bit of the grated cheese he had purchased. In the end, the lunch was light and tasted really good, and as he thought again about how good it felt to do something for himself.

 

 

 

“What about you?” he asked as he put the kale in the bottom of a soup bowl – found in the cupboard near the glasses – and poured half the pot of soup on it. “Let me get another bowl -”

 

 

 

“No no,” Nathan said, glancing at his watch, then getting to his feet. “I’ve got to get to a meeting. I’m tutoring some students in organic chem, and I need to get there. Sprinkle the cheese on top – that’s it, not too much. Now, sit down here,” he indicated the stool he’d just vacated, “and enjoy. You got half an hour before your next appointment.” He grinned and turned toward the door. But as he walked, he called over his shoulder, “And don’t make too many of those midnight trips down to the market. You’ll regret it!”

 

 

 

As his belly brushed the counter when he sat down, Eric thought for the first time in a very long time that perhaps he did need to watch himself. Dani would have agreed.

 

 

 

Ezra – 1–2:30 pm

 

 

 

It was exactly half an hour before Roby called out, “Ezra is coming to the door.”

 

 

 

Eric was standing at the sink, rinsing out the soup pot and the bowl he had used. Just as Nathan had told him to. He felt remarkably satisfied, despite the simple fare.

 

 

 

“Let him in,” he said, reaching for a drying towel (they were located in a drawer under the microwave).

 

 

 

Unlike Vin and Nathan, Ezra was dressed in slacks, a buttoned down shirt, and leather loafers. He carried a leather satchel on a shoulder strap, and Eric noted that it matched his shoes. He looked like a banker on Casual Friday, which lead Eric to ask, “Are we going to some sort of business meetings?” He hoped not; he had a desperate desire to see how good those clothes looked on the floor of his bedroom.

 

 

 

Now that it was clean.

 

 

 

Ezra smiled, and Eric caught the flash of gold from his gold tooth. “In a manner of speaking,” he said. “I am here cover the part of the day when you deal with your personal finances.”

 

 

 

Eric frowned. “I have accountants that do that.”

 

 

 

Ezra smiled wider. “Of course you do,” he said. “As I informed Mr. Larabee. But he insisted that I should at least walk you through what ‘normal people’ do when it comes to a ‘normal day’, and a part of that day is, at the least, balancing their checkbook and considering where they are spending their income. I have no intention of invading your privacy or forcing you to show me anything actually having to do with your finances. But we can still discuss and consider your spending habits, in abstraction.”

 

 

 

Eric thought about it for a few seconds. “In abstraction?”

 

 

 

Ezra shrugged. “A matter of discussing habits, impulses, and self-restraint.” He put his satchel on the counter and opened it, pulling out a leather binder. Eric glimpsed an embossed signet on the bottom right corner, the letters EPS, with the S in the center and larger. Ezra opened the binder and inside was a legal pad and two writing instruments that looked like gold pens. “Shall we sit somewhere more comfortable?”

 

 

 

They ended up in the living room, Eric sitting in his usual place, the side of one of the couches in the L, facing the wall console video monitor. He didn’t put his feet on the footstool like he usually would, as this conversation seemed more serious than casual.

 

 

 

Ezra sat on the other side of the L, leaning forward so that his notepad was on the large low coffee table. He had a pen in hand and was writing something on the page.

 

 

 

When he finished, he sat back and crossed his legs, this pants pulling up to show the elegant tassel on the top of the loafer. “I gather that you went shopping with Nathan today. Do you have that receipt? We can start there.”

 

 

 

Eric dug the receipt out of his wallet and handed it over. “Not much. $59.87.”

 

 

 

Ezra took the paper and looked at it for a time, then he shook his head. He jotted something on his notepad, then he put the receipt on it and ran the side of his hand over it, flattening it. “All this healthy food,” he said. “Would you consider it a waste?”

 

 

 

Eric frowned. “A waste?”

 

 

 

Ezra looked at him and smiled. “Will you eat all of that food? Really?”

 

 

 

Eric opened his mouth to say yes – lunch had been good, after all. But would he really change his life that much? Come home from work to eat lunch or leave work early to cook his own dinner?

 

 

 

He had done it for Dani – well, when Dani was cooking. But he wouldn’t do it for himself.

 

 

 

He sighed. “I’ll use some of it, especially over the next few days.” While he was off – or working from home. “But probably not all of it. Once I go back to work . . .”

 

 

 

“It is hard to break habits, is it not? Especially when we love what we do.” Ezra jotted something on the page and looked up at him. “Nathan is one of the most altruistic people I know. Perhaps the most. I am constantly at odds with this charity and his idealism. And with his food dictates. I can no more cut Brie and Camembert out of my diet than I can eat kale every other day.”

 

 

 

Eric was trying so hard not to laugh that he sputtered and fell into a coughing fit. Ezra was smiling at him when he finally regained his composure, graciously looking away as Eric fumbled tissue out of a side drawer on the end table and wiped his eyes and nose.

 

 

 

After he had recovered himself for the most part, Eric asked, “So you realize that there was waste in the things we bought today – that I bought today. Is that want you want to address?”

 

 

 

Ezra looked at him, and his green eyes seemed to sparkle in the room’s light. “While waste is an issue – spending money on things that you will ultimately not use – the bigger thing is the idea of what people actually need. My understanding is that this exercise is to get you in touch with lifestyle of those people who set the standard for ‘normal’. In this society, those people are, by a number of different but overlapping variables, people of the ‘middle class’ - people who make enough money in their regular paychecks to put money aside in case of need – or in case of investment opportunity. They are not dependent completely on the check that comes in to cover their needs so completely that they are without resource until the next paycheck. They are very careful with their money and they try to keep up with their finances regularly. They plan their spending as much as possible – they budget.” He smiled and tapped his pen on the notepad, watching Eric.

 

 

 

Eric considered what he had heard. “I know about budgeting – we do it in the business. Though I guess it is different in the household, isn’t it. I remember my parents arguing about money. My sister and I avoided the house on Sunday afternoons, as that was when they did the weekly budget and it was always tense.”

 

 

 

Ezra nodded. “Indeed. The cause of most divorces, as I understand it, is finances. My own mother has a habit of leaving marriages when the financial situation becomes too stressful.” He looked at the notepad but Eric saw a grin flash across his handsome face. He wondered what was amusing, but didn’t ask; something, apparently, to do with Ezra’s mother.

 

 

 

“What we are going to do is to hypothesize, then, what it would be like to have to budget – to have a finite amount of income, enough to be comfortable but not whimsical. To have to consider our purchases before we buy them. As you say, I am certain that you understand the concept from your company’s perspective, but what about from your own? When was the last time you did not buy something that you wanted, and why didn’t you?”

 

 

 

Eric stared at Ezra, but he wasn’t seeing him. He thought back through the past few years, thought about the things he had bought. He had bought everything he’d come across that he wanted. There had been some things he had considered but declined, but that was because he hadn’t really wanted them, not once he thought about it.

 

 

 

The last time there was something he really wanted that he hadn’t bought . . . “When I was 19, I really wanted a Newton MesagePad – it was the basis for the IPhone- hell, it was the foundation for the IPod. I wanted to see if it was as good as everyone was was reporting.”

 

 

 

Ezra raised an eyebrow. “Almost twenty years ago?” he said, a certain skepticism in his voice.

 

 

 

Eric shrugged. “The Newtons were over a thousand dollars then. I was working in a pizza joint, living in a rooming house with six other guys. I could barely make my rent and the bills – usually ran short at the end of the month and had to live off the leftover pizzas from work.”

 

 

 

“When did you actually get one?” Ezra asked.

 

 

 

Eric thought about it for a minute. “One year later I finished the code for the game, six months after that, Tad and I started selling it online. Three months after that, I quit the pizza place and started spending all my time designing and writing games. So – about two years later. Got a Newton and an IPod. But by then, what I really wanted to do was figure out how to hack them, especially once Steve started talking about making cell phones.” He grinned, remembering.

 

 

 

Ezra chuckled. “You ever succeed at that? Hacking it?”

 

 

 

Eric shrugged. “It became more important to negotiate with Apple so that we could interface with their IOS, get the game on their products. Back then, they designed their own games, didn’t want to cross platform. Man, that seems like a million years ago.”

 

 

 

“So now, if you want something, you buy it?”

 

 

 

Eric drew a breath, thinking about it. Recalling what it was like to want and not be able to have. It made him feel sad, but what was more sad was that he never actually thought about it any more. And he hadn’t been aware, until now, of when he had lost the feeling of wanting something, the anticipation of being able to finally get it.

 

 

 

Which automatically led him to thinking of Dani. Because he wanted Dani – not to possess him or own him, but to be with him. And he couldn’t.

 

 

 

Ezra interrupted his thought, thankfully. “Let’s pretend, then, that there is something you want but that you can’t have right now, because to buy it would put you too far in debt. What is the most expensive thing that you want that you have not yet bought?”

 

 

 

Eric concentrated on that question, and after a while, came up with, “A condo on the beach in Hawaii.”

 

 

 

Ezra’s face didn’t change, but Eric saw the other man’s throat move as he swallowed. His voice, though, when he spoke, was as pleasant and conversational as before. “Excellent. For the purposes of this exercise, I am going to downgrade that to a vacation in Hawaii – as we are pretending to be ‘normal’. So a vacation in Hawaii. With airfare, hotel room costs, eating expenses, museum and activity expenses, and the requisite souvenir shopping, let’s estimate the cost at about $2,500, per person. I am going to assume that you will be traveling alone.”

 

 

 

“$2,500? That barely covers the price of a plane ticket,” Eric said, confused.

 

 

 

Ezra looked at him. “You, sir, are a normal person. Thus, you are planning this trip well in advance – most likely, a year in advance. Making reservations that far ahead lowers the price of the ticket substantially. On top of that, you are a ‘normal person’. Thus, you will be flying economy, not business. How did your parents travel? Or, perhaps, how do your employees travel when you send them for work? Does your company pay business class for all work-related trips?”

 

 

 

“It depends,” he said, but he was thinking about the idea of it. He recalled the meetings with his CFO and the different department leaders about cutting costs a few years ago, when the company’s earnings were down. They had downgraded travel, implementing a stricter policy about who could go where, when, and how. Derek Bowes, his Sales Manager, had suggested long-range planning for the sales execs – aligning the marketing and sales with the new product lines so that the sales people had a better idea of what they were pushing when they got there, instead of waiting until they had the product ready to go before setting up the sales plan.

 

 

 

Costs had been cut in half.

 

 

 

And the cost of travel had been a major part of the reason. The Tech people had bitched, as it held them to a tighter deadline, but then, for every action, there was an equal and opposite reaction, as his Personnel Manager often said about company decisions.

 

 

 

“Same rule applies to hotel rooms, too, doesn’t it. The earlier you make reservations, the lower the price.” Ezra nodded, looking pleased at Eric’s observation. “How do you save on meals?” Eric asked. “You can’t order the food a year ahead.”

 

 

 

Ezra grinned. “No, you can’t. But you can make some cost-saving plans, such as eating only one big meal a day, and choosing whether to make it the lunch meal, which is usually less costly than the dinner meal. You make one of your first stops at a grocery store, so that you can eat some meals in the hotel room. You eat breakfast at the hotel, as that meal is usually included in the price of the room.”

 

 

 

Eric nodded, recalling vacations with his family. And the anticipation.

 

 

 

Something else he had forgotten. Looking forward to something as simple as a meal. Or a trip. He and Dani had talked of taking a trip to Ireland, and at one point, Dani had brought home a travel book. For a week, Eric would come to bed and Dani would be reading about places they could go, things they could do.

 

 

 

Until Eric had handed Dani his AmEx and told him to make the reservations and they would leave in two days.

 

 

 

Dani had never said another word about the trip, waving Eric off when Eric had asked why. Two weeks later, Dani was gone.

 

 

 

He hadn’t realized he had gotten up and wandered over the window until he noticed that he was looking at the shrubs in his landscaped sideyard. Perfectly trimmed, perfectly green.

 

 

 

“Eric?” Ezra’s voice was soft, concerned.

 

 

 

He drew a breath and turned back. “I didn’t realize talking about finances could involve so many memories,” he said, trying to smile.

 

 

 

Ezra looked at him then he nodded, once. “Perhaps we should speak of other things ‘normal people’ do -”

 

 

 

“Do you plan your vacations a year ahead?” Eric asked. “Not that it’s any of my business, but I am curious.”

 

 

 

Ezra shifted in his seat, uncrossing his legs and laying his notepad aside, the pen carefully arranged on top so as not to roll off. “What you’re really asking is how ‘normal’ I am, is it not?” Before Eric could answer, Ezra went on. “I am certainly not in your income bracket, so yes, I am more aware of my spending. But I am not ‘normal’ in my finances, either. I live very frugally – truth be told, we all do. Not because we have to – we are paid quite well for what we do, and Chris keeps a very small percentage of it for living expenses and the like. In fact, for most of us, this business is more a sideline, a second job, than it is the basic means of our income. You know already that Josiah is a professor of psychology, that Nathan has actually graduated with his medical degree and is working on his residency. What you may not know, but what is not a secret, and therefore I am at liberty to reveal, is that Vin, Chris, and Buck are security analysts – damned good ones. And JD is an artist; he makes a pretty good living from illustrating comic books. We are not ‘normal’ by any definition of the word. But most of us have come from ‘normal’ backgrounds. We have some appreciation for, and perhaps even envy of the concept of ‘normality’, and most of us have attempted it. And mostly, we will each attempt it again in the future.”

 

 

 

Eric turned back to the window, thinking of the men he knew. He had known about Nathan and Josiah, and he had suspected about Chris – though not Buck or Vin. In light of this information, he understood Vin’s thoughts about his house in a different way; Vin hadn’t been ignorant about the ‘smart house’ concept, he had been considering the security risks of such.

 

 

 

Bigger fool Eric, to make assumptions.

 

 

 

“And you?” he asked, though he still looked out the window. “Do you have a ‘day job’?”

 

 

 

Ezra laughed as he said, “I, sir, am a trained and licensed accountant, with a master’s degree in tax accounting and tax law.”

 

 

 

Eric was glad he wasn’t drinking anything. He couldn’t stop himself, though, from turning quickly to look at the other man. Ezra was smiling, but his eyes were serious.

 

 

 

“Hard to believe, I know, but it is true. By day, I am a mild-mannered accountant. I even have the glasses to prove it. They are in my briefcase.”

 

 

 

Eric shook his head, now sharing the amusement. “Wire rims? Or plastic?”

 

 

 

Ezra grinned wide enough for the gold tooth to flash again. “Tortoise shell, of course. JD refers to them as my ‘Clark Kent’ disguise. He had quite a delightful time dressing me for the Halloween Party as Superman.”

 

 

 

Eric did laugh then, recalling that wonderful party and the costumes their hosts had worn. The theme was superheroes, and Ezra had, indeed, been both Clark Kent and Superman.

 

 

 

“So you’re not ‘normal’ either,” he said. “But you want to be?” The idea was swirling in his mind, and he realized that it wasn’t something externally induced, it hadn’t come from Ezra’s words. It had been there all along, and was now rising to the fore, as if summoned.

 

 

 

“In some ways,” Ezra said, holding up a hand. “I confess that I do not envision myself as a family man, living in suburbia with the white picket fence. But I do want, one day, a comfortable life that affords me the time to devote to a stable relationship with someone I adore and who adores me. And with whom I can make long-range travel plans, things to look forward to.”

 

 

 

Eric tilted his head to one side, trying to see Ezra that way. Maybe with the glasses . . .

 

 

 

“So what other things do ‘normal people’ do when it comes to finances?”

 

 

 

They spent the next half hour talking about retirement accounts and plans, about investment portfolios – things Eric did know a lot about but in abstraction. He hadn’t truly considered them because he had accountants for that. Which reminded him - “Do you work for me?”

 

 

 

Ezra was in the middle of an explanation about the importance of diversification – if for no other reason than relieving some of the taxes on investments, and he looked startled by the interruption. But with his usual grace, he smiled and shifted gears. “No, I work for a private auditing firm, and to my knowledge, we have never been hired by your company. To be very clear, my friend, if we had been or were ever to be, I would recuse myself from the account. I do not mix my two jobs. I have never worked on the account of a client, and do not take clients whose accounts I have worked on. And even if I did, Chris would not allow it. We are all very strict in keeping our various professions quite separate.”

 

 

 

“Yeah, I guess you have to be,” Eric said, thinking about it.

 

 

 

There was a soft chime, and Ezra glanced at his watch. “My time is up, I fear,” he said, gathering up his notepad and pen. “You should change into something that you can get dirty.”

 

 

 

“Dirty?” Eric frowned.

 

 

 

Ezra smiled, looking like a bird who had eaten the canary. “Quite dirty. Normal people do have chores that can be very messy.” He turned and walked back to the kitchen, where he retrieved his satchel from the counter.

 

 

 

As he put away his notebook binder, Eric asked, “May I see the glasses?”

 

 

 

Ezra glanced at him, then he reached into a side pocket and extracted a hinged glasses case. In it were a pair of large, tortoise shell glasses frames, the copper and bronze colors spare within the prominent black. He opened them and put them on, and Eric remembered how sexy he had looked as Clark Kent. He reached out and tugged at a strand of Ezra’s perfectly styled hair, and as if of its own volition, the strand swirled into a perfect curl, siting just over the bridge of the glasses in the center of Ezra’s forehead.

 

 

 

“Indeed,” Ezra said with a slight scowl of irritation. But he followed it with a quick grin. Once more, Eric thought of dragging this man into his bedroom and spreading those stylish clothes all over his clean carpet.

 

 

 

Ezra left the curl as it was, patting Eric on the shoulder as Roby opened the door for him to leave.

 

 

 

Buck – 3–4:30 pm.

 

 

 

Half an hour later, there was a loud “Whooowhee!” just before Roby announced, “Buck is at the front door.”

 

 

 

The front door clicked and swung inward to show Buck standing there in cargo shorts, flip flops, a wife-beater of indeterminate color (when it got wet, Eric thought it had once been the same blue as Buck’s eyes), and a baseball hat with an emblem for the Seattle Stars, the women’s pro basketball team that Buck followed.

 

 

 

“Howdy, big boy!” Buck called loudly, as if Eric were on the other side of the house. Eric winced at the volume but grinned, then he laughed as Buck trotted forward and hugged him, lifting him off the floor. “Good to see you! And don’t you look a sight!” He put Eric down and stepped back, though his hands were still on Eric’s shoulders. “Thought Ezra was gonna tell you to change into working man’s clothes.”

 

 

 

Eric looked down at himself; he had put on a pair of shorts and an older t-shirt, one from a tech conference he had attended a couple of years ago, along with his running shoes. “I can work in these,” he said, looking back up. “Can’t I?”

 

 

 

Buck frowned. “You ain’t got something older? Them shoes look like they still got some wear in ‘em. Hell, they’re still white.”

 

 

 

Eric shrugged. “Best I got, I’m afraid. Or worst, as the case may be.”

 

 

 

“Reckon they’ll have to do, then,” Buck said grinning again. “Come on, son, I left the gear in the yard.”

 

 

 

“What gear?” Eric asked, following after Buck.

 

 

 

The gear was in another big bucket, and Eric took one look at it and stopped. “We’re gonna wash the cars?” he said. He glanced to the side garage, which held his Porsche convertible and his Mercedes SUV.

 

 

 

“Normal people do it every week, whether they need it or not,” Buck grinned. “Love your car like it’s your wife, take care of it and it will take care of you.” He picked up the bucket and looked around. “Where’s your hose?”

 

 

 

That was a damned good question. Ultimately, Eric had to go back inside and ask Roby, who answered with no censure – which was more than he could say for Buck who looked horrified that Eric didn’t know this about his own house.

 

 

 

“How do you water the lawn?” he asked as Eric texted Roby to open the garage.

 

 

 

“I have gardeners,” Eric answered – and knew before he had finished the sentence, it was the wrong thing to say.

 

 

 

“Gardeners?” Buck said. “You pay people to have fun in your yard?”

 

 

 

Eric looked at him, opened his mouth, stopped because he knew the answer, but ultimately couldn’t help himself “How do you have fun doing yard work?”

 

 

 

For the next hour and a half, Buck showed him.

 

 

 

And it was fun, once he allowed himself to get into the spirit of it.

 

 

 

It started with the hose – or the water from the hose. Buck screwed it onto the spigot, turned it on, then jumped when the water spewed from the end onto his feet.

 

 

 

Eric laughed – and was rewarded for his amusement with a shot of water in his belly. It was cold, a contrast to the heat of the day, and he jerked to get out of the line of fire. For a few seconds, he was angry, especially when he looked over and saw Buck grinning.

 

 

 

From that point, it was war.

 

 

 

In and around attempting to drench each other, they did manage to wash both cars. And in and around doing that, Buck told some great stories, most of which involved a comment along the lines of, “ . . .pretty woman with curves that would make a racetrack weep . . .” and “. . . he had those perfect arms, the ones that look like a marble statue from one of those Italian guys . . .” and “. . .one of those nights where when you finally wake up, you can’t find your dick because it’s so tired, it’s crawled back up inside . . .” and “. . . I reckon he thought it was challenge, but it sounded like a great idea to me, so we did it . . .”

 

 

 

And as with the others, Eric found himself learning about the other men who worked with Buck. “Now don’t let Chris fool you – he’s a pussycat, especially after he’s been on the receiving end of a good, slow ride . . . Nathan’s having fun, no doubt about that, but I keep waiting for Rain to make an honest man of him. It’s coming – we got a betting pool on it, if you want in. JD, too – though Casey’s the one who’s got to be tamed. That girl – I think JD would marry her in a skinny minute and settle down, but she’s got more oats to sow. She’s on the road so much with her band that he hardly ever sees her, so it’s good we can keep him distracted . . . Yeah, old Josiah gives that impression, don’t he, all calm and reasonable. But I’ve seen him angry, and boy howdy, he is not someone you want to be on the wrong side of. Saw him break a table in half one time, going after a guy who was hitting a woman in a bar . . .Yeah, Ez likes to give that impression, that he’s got it all together, but he’s a mama’s boy. That woman’s a beauty – one of them women who gets more beautiful the older she gets. But she’s a handful, and she keeps him on his toes, keeping her out of trouble. Last year, he had to fly to Paris to get her out of some mess – had to take Vin along. Neither one of them have told us what happened, but they both came back pretty beat up. It wasn’t a good look on either one. . . .Vin? Yeah, he seems like a surfer boy, don’t he, all that hair and the tan and them pretty blue eyes, but let me tell you – that boy can kill you with a spoon. He had this client once who tried to rough him up – Vin ain’t into that with clients. He did some sort of thing with his fingers, something like that Spock guy does from Star Trek and the client went to sleep. Woke up couple of hours later and believed Chris when Chris said he had had too much to drink and passed out. . . Me? I’m pretty flexible – well, hell, Chris says there ain’t nothing I won’t try, though I told him I had a limit of two legs . . .”

 

 

 

By the time the cars were washed, vacuumed, wiped down inside, then waxed, Eric had laughed so hard that he hurt. He was also wet – but not hot, which might have been the point.

 

 

 

And like Vin, they had run overtime. But as they walked back toward the front door, sharing a bottle of water Buck had brought along, Eric asked, “You’re the most normal of all of you, aren’t you.”

 

 

 

Buck took a long pull on the water bottle and after he swallowed, he looked at Eric. “My ma was a working woman. She and a couple of other women lived together in an old hotel in a backwater town in the middle of the country. They all had kids, so they traded off; two would work one night and the third would take care of us kids. I grew up with four other kids, thinking of them as my brothers and sisters. Closest thing to family I had. So close that when my ma got killed, one of those women, Edna Mae, told the cops that I was her kid, and she just took me in. I was 14 at the time, and I stayed with her until I joined the Army at 17. I’ve been sending her money, every month, since then.” He stopped and looked at Eric’s house and grinned. “I don’t need the money I make from this to live, but she does. I helped my brothers and sisters through college. They’re scattered all over the country now, most of ‘em doing great.” He looked back at Eric and held out the bottle. “Family is what you make it, and it’s pretty much the thing that makes us normal. Chris and I been brothers for a long damned time, so long that when he got this idea, I was right there with him. Because I wanted another family. Just like we all do.” He slapped Eric on the back and called back, “Get cleaned up. Think you’ve got more errands to run!”

 

 

 

And then he was gone, the sound of his flip flops slapping on the sidewalk.

 

 

 

Josiah – 5–6:30 pm

 

 

 

“You have received a text message,” Roby announced as Eric stepped out of the shower. “Josiah requests that you meet him at the curb in 10 minutes.”

 

 

 

More errands, as Buck had predicted. Thankfully though, it sounded like a car was involved this time. He needed to sit down. He couldn’t remember when he had been this active, and he was beginning to feel the muscle fatigue.

 

 

 

Without thinking, he picked up the wet clothes from his time with Buck and dropped them in the hamper which he had moved inside his closet. Then he slipped back into the jeans and shirt he had worn earlier, with Nathan. His tennis shoes were wet, though, so he put on the Gucci desert boots.

 

 

 

He was standing on the curb in front of his house when a Josiah pulled up in a Nissan Cube. As he got in, he noticed that there were books in the back seat, and papers, as if the car served as an office.

 

 

 

“Good afternoon,” Josiah said, grinning at Eric while he strapped into the seat belt. “Busy day?”

 

 

 

“So far,” Eric said. “Being ‘normal’ is very . . . tiring.”

 

 

 

Josiah laughed, a deep throaty sound that Eric loved. “It is indeed, my friend, it is indeed.” He pulled into traffic, handling the car skillfully. Eric noted that it was a manual transmission, which was more impressive. “I know you did the grocery store shopping with Nathan – always an educational experience. But normal people also have other errands to run. Libraries, dry cleaners, bill paying – those sort of things. I realize that you may not need to do these things, but I do, so you can ride along with me and pretend that you are doing them as well.”

 

 

 

“Library?” Eric asked, glancing again to the backseat. “You don’t buy all the books you want?”

 

 

 

Josiah smiled. “Many of the books I want are not available for purchase anymore – at least, not at prices that I can afford. For those of us who study human nature, there are millions of books that have been written. Often, the only way to read them is to find a library that has them.”

 

 

 

Eric shook his head, feeling a little foolish. “I guess I’m living in the future. I thought all the really old stuff was being digitized.”

 

 

 

Josiah slowed for a red light as he answered, “There is some of that going on, but do you realize how many books there are out there? Just the old ones in English alone will take years to digitize. I don’t have that long to wait – I ain’t getting any younger.” He grinned as he said it, making light of it, but Eric got his point.

 

 

 

“Do you read for enjoyment or just for work?” Josiah asked, easing the car forward as the light changed.

 

 

 

“Both, I guess,” Eric said. “They’re kind of one and the same. I love my company and what we do, and I love finding new ways to do things.”

 

 

 

“You are a lucky man,” Josiah said. “And I am right there with you. I love what I do, and the reading is a big part of that. Here we are.”

 

 

 

They were at the main branch of the city’s public library, an older brick building with three floors. Eric didn’t recall ever having been in it, though Dani used it from time to time. He wondered if Dani were here now, if they might see him.

 

 

 

Part of him wanted to – he was, after all, with a very attractive older man who was obviously smart. Josiah was dressed like a college professor, wire rim glasses, an oxford shirt with the sleeves rolled up, khaki slack and leather loafers, and as they got out, Josiah opened the back and picked up a number of books, stacking them so that he could carry them into the building.

 

 

 

It smelled like every library Eric had ever been in: musty, inky, and old. He did notice immediately, though, that at least a third of the main room was filled with tables with computers on them, and that along one wall were a number of printers, a copier, a microfiche machine, and other machines that did speak of the modern world.

 

 

 

Josiah walked to the counter where he set the books down. One of the women behind the counter smiled at him and said, “Did those work, Josiah?”

 

 

 

“They did, Maggie, but then, you always know what I need. I do have a few more interlibrary loan requests – do you want me to give them to you now or email them later?”

 

 

 

“I’m not busy,” she said, reaching under the counter for a piece of paper. “Let’s see what you got.”

 

 

 

While Josiah and Maggie conducted their business, Eric wandered about the place. He stopped first at the large section of new releases, noting that most of them were fiction, but that there was a lot of new nonfiction, and a goodly part of those were on computers and digital technology. He picked up a copy of a book he hadn’t heard of, though it was written by someone he respected in the field, about security and digital technology. He was reading a chapter on hackers from other countries when Josiah came up beside him.

 

 

 

“You want me to check that out for you?” he asked, grinning.

 

 

 

Eric grinned back. “Nah, I’ll buy a copy. I think I need it. You ready?”

 

 

 

“Almost. I want to go downstairs and grab a few things. Won’t take me but a minute. You keep reading or walk about the place, see what you see.”

 

 

 

As Josiah moved off toward the stairs, Eric pulled out his phone and took a picture of the cover of the book. He’d order it later.

 

 

 

He put the book back on the shelf and walked around the room. There were sections of dvds, and he looked through the new release section there as well, pleased to see documentaries as well as popular choices. There were books on cd and mp3, and he noticed the signs for a digital service available through the library too. He took a picture of that poster as well, thinking that it would be a good way to listen to books, when he had time.

 

 

 

There were a lot of people using the computers, which surprised him. He thought everyone owned their own – didn’t they?

 

 

 

He was looking at the dvd collection of science fiction television shows when Josiah came back up the stairs and walked over to him. The older man carried a stack of six or seven books in the crook of his arm. “Ready?” he asked as he got close, pitching his voice low.

 

 

 

Eric nodded, put the dvds back on the shelf, and followed Josiah to the counter, waiting patiently while he checked out the books. It was obvious that Maggie was flirting with him, and Eric was amused by the deftness with which his friend deflected the flirtation.

 

 

 

“Fan club,” he said as they made their way out in the parking lot.

 

 

 

Josiah smiled. “She’s a lovely woman,” he answered. “But I am not in the market for a lovely woman.” He pulled out his key fob and unlocked the doors on the car.

 

 

 

“A lovely man?” Eric opened the door on his side of the car but waited, watching Josiah as he put the book in the back seat and then pulled open his own door.

 

 

 

“I already have quite a collection of those,” Josiah answered with a broad grin.

 

 

 

They settled into the car and got moving. As they left the parking lot, Josiah said, “Next stop is the dry cleaners. There’s a good one several miles away that I like, run by a local family.”

 

 

 

“You and Nathan like these small businesses, don’t you,” Eric asked.

 

 

 

“Most business in this country is small business,” Josiah answered. “I work for a small business – the one that you asked for today.” He grinned. “I know your company is pretty big, so I don’t mean to say that I don’t like large business, but I do like to help out the community wherever I can. It’s where I live.”

 

 

 

Eric thought about that for a time. Then he said, “There were a lot of people in there using computers.”

 

 

 

Josiah downshifted as they came into a pretty congested area. It was after five o’clock, people getting off work. “There are,” he said. “Computers have been a necessary addition to the libraries.”

 

 

 

“Why?” Eric asked. “Don’t most people now have their own?”

 

 

 

Josiah drew in a breath and shook his head. “No, Eric, many people do not. Technology is not cheap. Even though the price of a lap top has come down to less than $200, for many families, that is the price of a monthly food bill, or a car payment that they have to have to get to work. Then there’s the price of internet, which is also not free unless you come to places like the library.”

 

 

 

Eric sat back, recalling something Dani had said to him once, early in their relationship: “Must be nice, white boy, to be able to use an online hook-up service. Some of us had to do it the hard way – going to bars or the local park. You can’t use Match.com in a library, and you sure as shit can’t go to hotforyou.com.”

 

 

 

“I guess there’s a lot I take for granted,” he said, then he caught himself and said, “No, if this day has proven anything, it’s that I have no idea what it’s like to lead a normal life.”

 

 

 

Josiah chuckled. “Well, I appreciate your honesty there, but being as I’m an academic, I have no choice, really, but to mention that there really is no such thing as a ‘normal life’. We have a dream of it, and I think we all have an image of what it’s supposed to be. But the problem is that it’s exactly that – an image. A fantasy. An ideal. Those ideals rarely happen, if ever. You’ve spent time today with some of the best men I have ever had the chance to know. And from what I have already gathered, they have each tried to show you the ‘normal life’ of most people – but also suggested ways in which they, themselves, have come by what knowledge they have of the ideal.”

 

 

 

The words, the thoughts, were complicated and there was a lot to think about. He did think about it - and he realized later, that Josiah was letting him do so. They reached the dry cleaners’ and Josiah left the car running, the air conditioner on, and he took a box of clothes inside, while Eric kept thinking.

 

 

 

Dani was back on his mind, of course, Dani who wanted their relationship to be something it wasn’t. Not because he wanted to change Eric – he knew who Eric was and had fallen in love with him because of it. But because he wanted a life that Eric didn’t understand.

 

 

 

And, as Eric was beginning to see, not only hadn’t he understood it, he had relished his ignorance. That, perhaps, was the thing that Dani couldn’t take anymore.

 

 

 

As Josiah got back in the car, Eric said, “What is the ideal, and why don’t so many people reach it?”

 

 

 

Josiah looked at him for a few seconds, then he shook his head. “We can start this conversation, but I promise you, it is one that we will continue for many years. I think, though, that we should start with the simple point: the relationship between money and happiness.”

 

 

 

They made three more stops before heading back to Eric’s, one at a wine store, one at Josiah’s bank, and a third one at a bakery where Josiah had an order waiting. As he paid, Eric looked around, his gaze catching on a chocolate and raspberry torte in the display case. He almost bought it, but caught himself. It was a whole torte and he knew he’d never manage all of it. And it was Dani’s favorite, which meant he’d be thinking of his former lover every time he took a bite.

 

He did give into the temptation of half of a blueberry pie. It was one of his own favorites.

 

 

 

As they got back in the care, Josiah picked up where they had left off. “Most of us are influenced heavily by our own parents – sometimes in a negative way. My father was a strict disciplinarian, to the point of abuse. My mother died in childbirth with Hannah, my sister, and my father believed that we were given to trouble if we weren’t strictly controlled. In the end, he drove Hannah crazy, literally. Because of him, my personal ideal for what I want is a comfortable life with people who love me and who I love. He wanted me to go into the ministry – and I tried, for a couple of years. But I just, simply could not. So I did the opposite: I went to college, got a degree in psychology, and did every damned thing he’d ever told me would send me to hell.”

 

 

 

Eric nodded, thinking about Josiah and what he did for the escort agency. He’d hired him a few times himself, mostly out of curiosity, but pain was not his thing, and he only wanted so much discipline. “Is that why you . . .”

 

 

 

“Do S and M?” Josiah finished for him. He shrugged. “Maybe. Probably. Certainly it’s why I’m attracted to relationships of power and the ways that people create power dynamics in all relationships. But that, too, is a topic for another time.”

 

 

 

Eric made a mental note to pick it back up sometime. Josiah was, indeed, fascinating. He came back to a thought he had had earlier. “Ezra said something about his mother – is she very different from him?”

 

 

 

Josiah chuckled. “Indeed she is. A beautiful woman, Maude is, and very capable. She raised him alone, after her husband died. She was a very nontraditional woman, and a very nontraditional mother. Ezra has been caught between the traditional family of his father and the strength and determination of his mother. Maude did what she had to do to makes sure Ezra had every opportunity. He does not, though, always appreciate that. He was raised in a very nontraditional situation, and he often resents that.”

 

 

 

“That why he became an accountant?” Eric asked, still amused at the idea.

 

 

 

Josiah smiled, too, but there was a sadness in it. “Think about it: accountants are considered the most boring profession, but that’s because they are the most stable.”

 

 

 

He was right. “So all of you . . .”

 

 

 

Josiah laughed. “I can’t speak for us all, it’s not my place. I can say that probably Chris is the most ‘normal’ one of us, and had God, or fate, or whatever one deems it, not intervened, he would be the one living the ‘normal’ ideal life.” His humor faded then, as quickly as water in a drain. He started to speak, then stopped, then started, then once again stopped.

 

 

 

Eric looked at him, frowning. “Josiah?”

 

 

 

The older man sat for a time, as if he were concentrating completely on driving. But as they drew up to the turn onto Eric’s road, he said, “I suspect that if you Google Chris’ name, this story will come up, so I guess I’m not actually telling you anything you can’t find out some other way. Chris had a family – a wife and child. He had a pretty normal life, working as a military contractor, when his family was killed in a terrorist attack in a busy suburban shopping area in Philadelphia. He went crazy for a while, quit the military and set out to find the terrorists on his own. It was then that he met up with Buck and Vin.” He stopped then, pulling over into a parking spot.

 

 

 

“Did he find them?”

 

 

 

Josiah shrugged. “Not as far as I know. He’s still looking, but part of starting the agency is to give him some distraction. As I said when we started this, we all have our own ideals, a view of what life is supposed to be like. Most of us assume that somewhere in the future, we’re going to be ‘normal’ but the thing is, that ‘normal’ is relative. What we really want is happiness, a way to balance the things that make us happy against the things that don’t – and often against each other. The men I work with are some of the closest friends I’ve ever had. I love what I do with them. But I also love the other things I do. The thing about relationships – friendship, romantic ones, even family – is that the people who care most about you will be the ones who you want to spend time with. Who you want to find the balance for. That’s the most ‘normal’ thing in anyone, struggling to find that balance.”

 

 

 

He looked at Eric and smiled. “Reckon that’s enough of me lecturing. You’ve got a little over half an hour before your next lesson in being ‘normal’. I believe you’ll be cooking dinner with that delightful collection of foods that you bought with Nathan. And at this point, it should be no surprise who’s next on the roster.”

 

 

 

Eric frowned. “Chris? He cooks?”

 

 

 

Josiah nodded. “We all have our specialties, but Chris actually has some of the most extensive kitchen skills. He’s really good with making food out of what’s in the larder. And he’s all too familiar with Nathan’s shopping habits.” Josiah pointed toward the back seat. “Which is why I’m glad you bought dessert and wine!”

 

 

 

Eric laughed as he reached for the door latch. “You’ve given me a lot to think about – probably too much. If I want to talk some more about this . . .”

 

 

 

“Anytime, my friend. You know how to reach me. And I do not charge for these discussions.”

 

 

 

Eric got out of the car then opened the back door and got out his pastry box and the bag of wine bottles. He waved to Josiah then started up the walk, thinking about Chris.

 

 

 

Chris – 7-8:30 pm.

 

 

 

“Bastard,” Chris muttered, staring at the things in the refrigerator. “Last week, I told him I did not want to cook with kale and spinach. So of course that’s what he got.”

 

 

 

Eric grinned, amused at the politics of the seven men. “Who made up the rotation?” he asked, curious. There was a training exercise somewhere in here that he needed to give to HR. But he needed to figure it out first.

 

 

 

“It was a group effort. I didn’t think about Nathan doing the grocery run, though. At the house, we alternate it, so that two of us does the big run, the one for the house and the collective meals, each week. We always try to send Nathan with Buck or Josiah, to have some balance in the shopping. I forgot about his totalitarian food regime.” Chris sighed and closed the fridge, heading for the pantry. He stood in it for a few minutes, talking absently as he picked up cans and boxes, looking at them.  
“There is an art to this, which has to do with adapting base recipes to the ingredients at hand. Each of us has a specific skill set: I work best with pasta as a base. Josiah is a bean and rice guy, Nathan is a vegetable guy, Vin does best with baking and roasting things, Buck does the grill, JD does the crockpot.”

 

 

 

Eric counted in his head. “Ezra?” he asked.

 

 

 

Chris snorted. “He has the numbers to every restaurant within a five mile radius in his phone, and he can wheedle delivery out of most that don’t. Though to be fair, he does make a fantastic fried peanut butter and banana sandwich, which he learned from his grandmother, who was a big Elvis fan.”

 

 

 

Eric laughed at the image of it, Ezra as Elvis. Then he laughed harder at the idea of Chris Larabee eating a fried peanut butter and banana sandwich. By the time it was out of his system, Chris was setting things on the counter: pasta, diced tomatoes, cannelloni beans, olives, and a few other things. Then he headed back to the fridge and pulled out onions, garlic, peppers, broccoli, and, strangely, a beer.

 

 

 

Eric glanced at it then at Chris. “What pasta sauce has beer in it?”

 

 

 

Chris shrugged. “Don’t know. Do know, though, that the pasta cook has beer in him.” With that he grinned and twisted off the cap.

 

 

 

Eric grinned and grabbed one for himself. As he closed the fridge, Chris was opening drawers, eventually coming to one that had what he wanted: cutting boards. The knives were easier to find, in the block nearby. “How often do you cook?” Chris asked as he carried the vegetables to the sink.

 

 

 

“Me?” Eric asked after he swallowed some beer. “Hardly ever. Well, technically, never. But I have used the microwave. And the can opener.”

 

 

 

Chris turned on the water, shaking his head. “That changes today. You should always know the basics, just in case you get stranded in a cabin somewhere in the dead of winter and can’t order out.”

 

 

 

“Or when the zombies come?” Eric asked.

 

 

 

Chris snorted, washing the peppers. “You been spending too much time with JD and Buck.”

 

 

 

Of all the conversations he’d had today, this one turned out to be the lightest. He had expected the one with Chris to be the most serious – though he wasn’t sure he wanted anything more intense than what he’d had with Ezra and Josiah. Chris had never struck him as easy going – fun, yes; Chris knew how to have a good time and how to help others do it. But he seemed to approach everything with such single-mindedness that Eric had been certain he would be the one to focus on what Eric had asked for.

 

 

 

Though after Josiah’s story about Chris’ own past, Eric felt a certain concern - not for himself, but for Chris. He tried to imagine what it would be like to lose the most important people in your life, permanently. He had lost Dani, yes. But Dani wasn’t dead. He still had the hope of reconnecting with him one day, when he had his head on straight.

 

 

 

Chris . . .

 

 

 

“. . . not too thin, but not too thick – are you listening to me?” Chris’ voice was sharp, not really angry, but getting his attention.

 

 

 

“Sorry,” Eric said, pushing away what he had been thinking. “What?”

 

 

 

Chris frowned, holding up the hand with the knife. He didn’t point it at Eric, but he did gesture with it. “The key to any meal is to cut the peppers and onions the right size – so that when you cook them, they are not too big – and thus overpower the flavor – or too small – so that the flavor isn’t equal to the other parts. And onions, peppers, and garlic are the basics of most good meals.”

 

 

 

Eric frowned, the words, the idea, very familiar.

 

 

 

Because he had heard them so many times from Dani.

 

 

 

He forced himself to watch what Chris was doing, the sizes he was cutting on the cutting board. It was hard; his mind kept showing him Dani’s hands on the knife, those slender brown fingers that fluttered even as he cut and shifted.

 

 

 

“Once you learn to saute the base, then you can do anything. Mushrooms are good with it, any vegetable at all really. You can also use meat, though Nathan got you mostly frozen meat and I don’t want to take the time to thaw anything. If you think ahead, you can use chicken – thaw it, cut it into bite-sized pieces, add it - well, I’ll show you when.”

 

 

 

Eric watched as Chris finished chopping, the cutting board almost full. “Where did you learn this stuff? From your -” he almost said wife then caught himself, choking out, “mom?”

 

 

 

Chris glanced at him, arching an eyebrow in suspicion, but he answered, “Some. Though not a lot. I left home when I was 18, and before that, I wasn’t interested much in cooking. It wasn’t until I was on my own in college, working two jobs to afford it and figuring out that it was far cheaper to go to the grocery than to the fast food places.” He was searching through the cabinets now, moving around pots and pans until he found the one he wanted. “Get me the olive oil,” he said, pointing back toward the pantry as he did so.

 

 

 

Eric did as he was told, finding the bottle just inside the door on the right. As he handed it to Chris, he said, “So you cooked for yourself?”

 

 

 

Chris nodded, pouring some oil into the pan and then reaching for the cutting board. As he scooped in some of the things he had cut, he went on, “If you ever tell Nathan this, I’ll cut you off from the business,” he said, “but I was also sick a lot then. The stress of school and the work produced too much acid, or so the docs tell me know, and when I ate fast food, I was sick. So I ended up having to figure out how to prep my own.”

 

 

 

He was stirring the contents of the pan with a wooden spatula, the smell of the cooking onions, peppers, and garlic making Eric’s mouth water. It didn’t help when Chris added some spices from some bottles he’d found in the cabinet. “So who did you talk to?”

 

 

 

Chris grinned. “Didn’t. I read some books. Still do.”

 

 

 

Eric looked at him. “Books?”

 

 

 

“Cookbooks, diet books – sure. Magazines, too. Now, with the internet, it’s even easier. I subscribe to some blogs and newsletters. Learn a lot that way, not just about cooking but about the food industry itself. Pretty scary what makes its way onto the market as ‘food’.”

 

 

 

“How so?”

 

 

 

As he cooked, Chris talked about processed foods and the amount of sugar and fat in them, then about the meat industry - “One of the reasons I don’t eat as mush meat as I used to, and I try to eat only organic when possible”; fad diets - “A diet where you eat only meat? In this steroid, cholesterol driven era? Humans have evolved, we’re not the creatures we were in the Paleolithic Age”; agribusiness - “I grew up in farm country, but at a time when small farmers were losing everything to agribusiness and the economic collapse of the ‘80s. I’ll always buy from small businesses and farmers first. Hate the agribusinesses and their attitudes. And on top of that – the food doesn’t taste as good”; and finally, as he added the last ingredient to the big skillet, the drained cannelloni beans, the easiest, quickest meal to make - “Soup and bread. I keep a lot of it on hand, for when the stress gets to me. I actually try to make my own and then freeze the leftovers, but if I can’t, I open a can of something low sodium. I saw that you had a few Annie’s in the cabinet, which I suspect were Nathan’s choice. I let him think that I’m catering to him, but he’s actually right about those – they are the best.”

 

 

 

Eric was leaning against the counter, watching as the noodles boiled merrily away and the vegetable sauce simmered on the stove. “There seems to be a lot of . . . well, it seems like you guys have a lot of secrets from each other. A lot of competition.”

 

 

 

Chris was getting plates and glasses from the cabinets, but he stopped and turned, looking at Eric. There was a frown on his face, and his green eyes were cold. But for only a few seconds. Then he drew a breath and nodded. “I guess you’ve probably heard a lot about us today – a lot about how we deal with each other, living together as we do. And I guess it can sound that way – like we’re pushing against each other. But that’s not the case.”

 

 

 

He turned so that he was facing Eric. “We do compete – but not in the way you mean. We try to make each other better. We also try to teach other things. I know I’ve been ragging on Nathan tonight, but it’s not because he’s wrong – hell, it’s mostly because he’s right. Just like Josiah is annoyingly right when he talks about how we need to be tolerant of those people who make us out to be sinners and morally corrupt. And how Buck is right when he pushes us to donate to women’s centers. And how Vin is right when he says we have to be careful about who hires us – who we let hire us. We care about each other. A lot. But that doesn’t mean we agree on everything. Or, perhaps more the point, that we aren’t still trying to balance who we are, individually, against how much we want others to influence us.”

 

 

 

Eric blinked, but Chris was still looking at him, still holding his gaze. The words, the ideas, were good, and Eric appreciated that they were about having friendships. Balance, again. Just like Josiah had said.

 

 

 

Chris seemed to read his mind, and he went on, more quietly, “It’s a hard thing to do, to balance your own life against someone else’s. I . . .” He took a deep breath and swallowed, then he reached out and caught up his beer bottle which was almost empty. “I have tried to do it in other types of relationships – romantic ones. It’s way too easy to lose your own sense of who you are – and then to lose yourself entirely if something . . .if something in that romantic relationship goes wrong.”

 

 

 

Chris turned away them, lifting the bottle to his mouth and finishing off what was in it. The room was silent except for the sound of the food on the stove, the bubbling water and the simmering sauce.

 

 

 

Eric had no idea what to say – but he did have an idea of what it had cost for Chris to say that. And it struck a chord deep inside. Losing oneself when the relationship went wrong.

 

 

 

Though as he sipped his own beer, he thought that perhaps his own problem was that he’d never been able to give up enough of himself, and that that was why Dani had left.

 

 

 

Chris put down the bottle and picked up the plates. “You have a dining room fit for a royal banquet. But not for a dinner for two. The table for this meal should be in here. You know how to set a table?”

 

 

 

It involved Eric going out into the yard and picking a couple of the flowers that were blooming, a couple of sunflowers and daisies. He had to admit, as Chris put them in a vase he’d found under the sink, that they did add something to the room.

 

 

 

“While I drain the pasta, you need to open the wine – it needs to breathe for a few minutes,” Chris instructed.

 

 

 

Eric did as he was told – unlike soup cans, he had long ago mastered the opening of the wine bottle. As the penne noodles drained in the colander, Chris got a big serving bowl out of the cabinet. “Noodles first,” he instructed, “then a layer of cheese, then the sauce. Finish with a little more cheese and put the red pepper and oregano on the table. People like different levels of spices, so let them add their own whenever possible.”

 

 

 

Eric watched as Chris put the one-bowl meal together, impressed with how good it looked. Chris handed him the bowl and waved toward the table. “Garlic sticks are in the toaster oven and you have dessert already. Take it out to get to room temp when you clear the plates after dinner, and refill the wine glasses.”

 

 

 

Eric frowned, watching as Chris rinsed the colander and the pans he had used and loaded them into the dishwasher. “So . . . you are joining me for this?” He hadn’t meant for it to come out as a question.

 

 

 

Chris closed the dishwasher and looked at him. “It’s 8:00,” he said without looking at his watch. “I have other plans for the night.”

 

 

 

Eric looked at the table, set for two – Chris’s plan. “Then who -”

 

 

 

“Dani is at the door,” Roby announced.

 

 

 

Eric’s heart stopped for a second, and he almost forgot how to breathe. Then Chris was in front of him, those green eyes boring into him. “Normal people learn from their mistakes,” he said quietly. “Don’t fuck this up.”

 

 

 

“But -” Eric started, reaching out to grab the other man.

 

 

 

Chris was gone, already at the door, where Dani was standing. He looked good – hell, he looked great, tall, lean, his smile white, his dark eyes shining as he said something to Chris that Eric didn’t catch.

 

 

 

Then Chris was gone and Eric was alone with the man he thought he had lost.

 

 

 

“Normal people invite their friends to dinner,” Dani said, his voice light and easy. “May I come in?”

 

 

 

Eric stared at him, trying to breathe. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

 

 

 

“Dinner is served,” Roby announced, filling the silence. “Perhaps you should pour the wine, Dani.”

 

 

 

Eric vaguely wondered where the AI had learned that. But that was a question for later. Much later.

 

 

 

*&*&*&*&*

 

 

 

“I never got a bill,” Eric said into the phone. “I’ve been through my personal account several times but it’s not there.”

 

 

 

On the other end, Ezra sighed. “Really, Eric, you need to talk to Chris. I do not handle the accounting for the business, as I told you.”

 

 

 

“I’ve tried to talk to Chris,” Eric said, irritated. He glanced up as Dani walked past him; his lover was carrying two glasses of wine, one of which he set on the desk near Eric, the other of which he carried with him as he continued on to the chair at the window. “He hasn’t returned my calls.”

 

 

 

“Well,” Ezra said, distracted, “perhaps you should stop worrying. It’s possible that there was not a charge.”

 

 

 

Eric frowned, watching as Dani settled into the chair, his long legs, bare below the line of his shorts, toned and elegant. They had been running every morning for the past three months, since they had started seeing each other again, and despite that fact that it was December, Dani still wore his shorts.

 

 

 

Running every morning been easier for the past month, since Dani had started spending the nights again.

 

 

 

“Wha – not a charge?” Eric said, incredulous. “All seven of you took time out of your day – out of one day -”

 

 

 

“Indeed,” Ezra agreed. “I recall. Tell me, have you benefited from what you learned that day?”

 

 

 

Eric considered the words. “I – well, yes, I think so.” He had. If it weren’t for Ezra, he might never have noticed that he had never received a bill for the visits and instruction that day.

 

 

 

And he had used most of the things he had been taught that day – mostly because it meant he had more time with Dani. They had come to love their evenings together at home, where they cooked together while they talked about their days. Doing the laundry, cleaning up the house – not a grand clean; Eric still had the service in once a week, but doing it themselves, they had more privacy. More time together.

 

 

 

And shopping together, arguing about food, about meals – he now understood what Chris had meant. A competition to make each other better.

 

 

 

Because he could not, did not, want to think of his life without Dani in it.

 

 

 

“You think?” Ezra asked, but there was a tone in his voice that sounded a little like amusement.

 

 

 

And Eric suddenly realized what was going on. Something Vin had said came back to mind, something about dressing in jeans when he wasn’t working.

 

 

 

None of them had been working. They had all taken time out of their day to show him – to show him how to be ‘normal’.

 

 

 

To teach him about himself.

 

 

 

“You bastards,” he said, but he wasn’t angry.

 

 

 

“I beg your pardon?” Ezra said, but it was no more angry than Eric had been. “Forgive me, but I have to go – I have someone waiting. Please give Dani our best – oh, and do be on the lookout for an invitation. It’s time for the New Year’ ball. See you then.”

 

 

 

And he was gone, leaving Eric watching his lover. As he put his phone down, he asked, “You didn’t set this up.”

 

 

 

Dani had been looking out the window but he turned, frowning, and said, “Set what up?”

 

 

 

Eric didn’t answer, because he didn’t have to. He knew who had done it. Those seven.

 

 

 

“Reckon they like us,” Dani said with a shrug. “Each one of them told me that I needed to give you a second chance. And it seems they were right.”

 

 

 

Eric put his cell phone on the desk and sat back, pushing away from the desk. The chair had wheels and the floor of his home office was wooden so it didn’t take a lot of effort to roll over to where his lover was. “Seems they were,” he said, reaching out to take Dani’s hand. “Seems kinda strange when you think about it, that it took a bunch of hookers to get us back together.”

 

 

 

Dani laughed. “I think I prefer to think of them as friends.”

 

 

 

Eric smiled, loving the way his lover sounded when he was happy. “Friends with benefits,” he said, touching his wine glass to Dani’s.

 

 

 

“But not too many benefits,” Dani agreed as the crystal glasses chimed. “Josiah is coming over tomorrow night for dinner, isn’t he?”

 

 

 

“That’s the plan,” Eric said, “as long as you’re cooking.”

 

 

 

Dani grinned. “And you’re helping so do not be late.”

 

 

 

Eric shook his head. “I cleared my schedule already.” He had – in fact, he had made it clear that he was leaving no later than 6 every day, and so far, with the one exception of a crisis the night before the last program release, he had stuck to it. No one was more surprised by his changes than he was.

 

 

 

Not even Dani.

 

 

 

“The roast has reached 160 degrees,” Roby announced as Eric’s lips touched Dani’s. “Shall I turn off the oven?”

 

 

 

“Yes, thank you,” Eric called, pushing himself to his feet. “Shall we?” He offered his hand to Dani who looked up at him.

 

 

 

“I believe we shall,” Dani said.

 

 

 

As Eric pulled his lover to his feet, he asked, “Have you made plans for a vacation this year?”

 

 

 

Dani frowned. “Vacation?”

 

 

 

Eric shrugged, drawing Dani along as he led the way through the living room and into the kitchen. “I was thinking that we should start planning. I have the tech conferences in May and August, but I could take a week or two in July. If you want to, and if you can.”

 

 

 

Dani was silent for a time, so long that Eric was beginning to grow worried. But he tried not to show it, concentrating on taking the roasting pan out of the oven and setting it on the stove top. The beef roast smelled wonderful, a recipe that Vin had passed along after Buck had recommended it.

 

 

 

As Eric considered the best way to cut it, Dani asked quietly, “I can take time then, a week to ten days. Are we going to plan this – I mean, both of us?”

 

 

 

Eric swallowed, still looking at the meat and trying to ignore the anxiety in his belly. “Thought we could go down to the bookstore this weekend, look at some travel books. Pick out somewhere we both want to go. Then start thinking about what we want to do while we’re there. Isn’t that planning?”

 

 

 

He felt Dani step closer before his lover put a hand on his waist. “Is is planning, luv. And I think it’s a fantastic idea.”

 

 

 

They started talking about it before dinner was on the table, and Eric felt, once more, a thrum of anticipation. Just like normal people.

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Birthday, Boogie!


End file.
